Wine isn't just for snobs anymore. Wine drinking and wine tasting is for everybody and for every type of party. Gather a small group of your friends for a fun, casual wine tasting party, where you can share your personal preferred wines and discover some new favorites.
Don’t be a wine snob! Keep your wine tasting party fun and casual. Some people like to provide rating sheets and have guests keep track of likes, dislikes and comments, while others think even that’s too serious. Plan your wine tasting party around your guests – if they truly want to learn more about wine, delve into different types of wine and provide some information about each bottle.
If you know something about wine and want to share with your guests, find out something about each type of wine you’re offering and lead your guests in a demonstration, first tasting the wine “with your eyes”, noting the color, clarity and legs. Next, note the “nose” of the wine, and then – bottoms up!
What Wine to Serve at a Wine Tasting Party
You should have between six and 10 bottles of wine for your wine tasting party. Plan to have a few extra bottles of the ones you think your guests will like. After the tasting is over, you’ll want to pour a full glass of a favorite type of wine for your guests.
Wine Tasting Party Themes
Add some interest to your wine tasting party by choosing a theme. Try comparing different types of whites or reds, or have a taste-off of Australian vs Italian. Have a local wine tasting party with only wines from your home state. Or pick a type of wine, such as pinot noirs, and taste different samples from different vineyards.
A “favorite wine” tasting party has each of your guests bringing a bottle of their favorite wine and telling something about it.
Blind Wine Tasting Parties
If you have a group of friends who know a little bit about wine – or at least claim to – challenge them to a blind wine tasting party. Have everyone bring a different bottle of wine, something you’ve assigned them. Out of view of your guests, place the bottles in brown paper bags (you can get these at the wine store, but be sure they’re big enough to not give away the wine by the shape of the bottle), and tie a ribbon around the top. Write a number on each bag.
Serve samples of each wine and have your guests guess what type of wine they’re drinking. Keep score cards where guests can write their best guess next to the number that corresponds with the bottle.
Food and Palate Cleansers
Have bread, water crackers, fruit and cheese to eat and water to drink between tastes of wine. Don’t plan to serve too much food or food that’s too heavy. Light appetizers and snacks are fine for a wine tasting party.
Wine crackers are unflavored crackers that are made just for cleansing the palate between sips of different types of wine.
Tips For Hosting a Wine Tasting Party
WineLove.com shows different types of glasses for serving wine. At a wine tasting party, you don’t need to provide a clean glass for each type of wine. Provide a dumping bucket (something nice, now, not a plastic cleaning bucket. How about that pretty ice bucket you have?) for guests to dump out what’s left in their glasses to try the next wine. Experts suggest you not rinse the wine glasses out with water in between tastes; it will dilute the wine.
A reader at Stratsplace.com suggests telling your wine tasting guests to not wear cologne or perfume. “There is nothing worse than trying to taste a 1985 Stags Leap Cask 23 standing next to someone that is wearing 2 ounces of Polo!”
Amazon.com has a wine tasting party kit complete with rating sheets and labels. You’ll also find SWILL products for hosting wine tasting parties and wine clubs.
RealSimple has some suggestions for music for your wine tasting party, including “Peel Me a Grape” by Diana Krall.
If you’re serious about hosting the best wine tasting party ever, read the Wine Tastings Guide on how to host a home wine tasting party.
